Off-shore drilling and production apparatus



1965 R. o. POLLARD ETAL 3,215,202

OFF-SHORE DRILLING AND PRODUCTION APPARATUS Filed Oct. 10, 1961 1N VENTORS BY W United States Patent 3,215,202 OFF-SHORE DRILLING ANDPRODUCTION APPARATUS Robert 0. Pollard, Downey, Charles E. Wakefield,Jr., Bakersfield, and Paul R. Rowley, Long Beach, Calif., assignors toRichfield Oil Corporation, Los Angeles, Calif., a corporation ofDelaware Filed Oct. 10, 1961, Ser. No. 144,204 2 Claims. (Cl. 16666.5)

The present invention relates to off-shore drilling and moreparticularly relates to the installation of well drilling or productionapparatus in a submarine well or onto a well-head mounted at thesubmarine well after contact with the well or well-head has beeninterrupted.

Drilling into a formation underlying a body of water such as the oceanfrom a drilling barge presents many difliculties due to movement of thefloating drilling barge relative to the ocean floor due to tide and waveaction. Time lost in attempting to re-enter a well bore drilled into theocean floor or well-head equipment mounted thereon has substantiallyincreased elf-shore drilling costs in the past. Damage to well-headequipment, and submarine control bases in attempting to re-enter suchwell bores has also been excessive and costly. The installation ofdrilling and production equipment, such as blowout preventers, casingrisers, well-heads, or other tubular apparatus has heretofore beenaccomplished by guiding such equipment to the well from the barge byusing cable guide lines which are attached to a well landing base andextend to the drilling barge and over which the drilling equipment canbe guided until the equipment contacts the well-head apparatus. Cableguide lines, however, are subject to entanglement and lateraldisplacement due to ocean current, movement of the barge and flexibilityin the lines. Even when the guide lines are tensioned at the vessel,heavy equipment, such as blowout preventers cannot be accurately guidedinto registry with the well. In well installations accessible to divingoperations a diver may manually guide the drilling equipment onto thewell, however diving operations are limited at depths of greater than200 feet and impossible with presently available diving equipment atdepths greater than 300 feet. During the drilling operation a stingercan be utilized to maintain entry into the well or well-head from thebarge drilling apparatus and the apparatus lowered over the stinger intothe well or onto the well head. Our present invention is an improvementon the above three methods for stabbing the blowout preventer or othertubular drilling apparatus onto the well-head.

It is an object of our present invention to provide an apparatus forinstalling drilling and production apparatus at a submarine well orwell-head.

It is also an object of the present invention to provide apparatus forstabbing drilling apparatus such as a blowout preventer or tubularapparatus into a submarine well onto a well-head mounted at the wellopening, without the use of guide lines.

It is a further object of our present invention to provide apparatus forlaterally moving submarine drilling or production apparatus suspendedover a submarine well to effect alignment therewith.

Other objects and a more complete understanding of our present inventionmay be had by reference to the following specification and theaccompanying drawings in which:

FIG. 1 shows in elevation a blowout preventer to be guided onto awell-head.

FIG. 2 is a sectional View taken on line 2-2 of FIG. 1, and shows apower head utilized for laterally driving the blowout preventer intoposition over the well-head.

Patented Nov. 2, 1965 Briefly described, our present invention relatesto the provision of apparatus remotely controlled for stabbing blowoutprevention equipment, designated generally as 10, onto a submarine wellhead, designated generally as 12, by providing television apparatusmounted on a camera mount structure 14 which enables the operator on thebarge to determine the relative positions of the blowout preventionequipment 10 and the well-head 12, and laterally move the blowoutprevention equipment 10 with a power driven head 16 so that the blowoutprevention equipment 10 can be moved to a position just over thewell-head 12 and lowered thereonto.

Referring more particularly to the drawings, a landing base 18 ismounted at a submarine well bored in submarine formation 20. The landingbase has a conductor pipe 22 extending therethrough intothewell. Aconventional releasing joint 24 is provided to disconnect the wellproduction head 26 from the conductor pipe which is cemented into theformation. Production head 26 has a landing mandrel 28 for latching theblowout prevention equipment 10 thereonto with a conventional latchinggate 32. A guide funnel 30 may be used to assist in guiding the blowoutprevention equipment 10 onto the landing mandrel 28 as the blowoutprevention equipment is lowered onto the landing mandrel 28. The blowoutprevention equipment is latched on the production head 12 by closingrams (not shown) of the gate latch 32 around the landing mandrel 28. Theblowout prevention equipment may consist of any assemblage ofconventional blowout preventers. The blowout prevention equipment shownin FIG. 1 employs a gate type blowout preventer 34 and a hydril or bagtype blowout preventer 36.

The blowout prevention equipment 10 may be lowered from the drillingbarge on a casing riser 38 as shown in FIG. 1 or it may be lowered onthe drill pipe (not shown). A retaining ring 40 aflixed externally tothe casing riser supports a retrievable camera mount or support 14 on acollar 41 which is slidable over the casing riser and supported from thebarge with eye supports 43 and flexible cables 45 which may [be raisedand lowered by hand or any suitable means, e.g. a power driven winch onthe vessel (not shown). The camera mount 14 houses one or moretelevision cameras 42 which may be circumferentially spaced around thecamera mount to permit viewing of the location of the production head 26relative to the blowout prevention equipment 10 so that as the blowoutprevention equipment 10 is lowered from the barge onto the productionhead the entire lower end of the casing riser 38 with the blowoutprevention equipment attached thereto may be guided by lateral movementthereof to effect alignment with the production head 26. As the blowoutprevention equipment is lowered and laterally driven into properalignment, the guide funnel 30 will encompass the production head 26.

The lateral movement of the lower end of the casing riser and/or theblowout prevention equipment may be accomplished by any type of lateralforce generating means, such as power head 16 which is shown in planview in FIG. 2. The power head 16 illustrated consists generally of oneor more submersible motors 44 equipped with propellers 46 andcircumferentially spaced about a body portion 17 to provide lateraldrive for the blowout prevention equipment 10 in any lateral directionrelative to the production head 26. Reversible motors may be utilized tofacilitate lateral movement of the blowout prevention equipment andthereby reduce the number of motors required on the power head. Electricpower cables 48 extending from the power head to the drilling barge mayprovide for control of the motors from the drilling barge or the motorsmay be located on the barge and the propellers driven through a suitablecable. Other lower end of the blowout prevention equipment include pumpsor fluid jetting means operated either on the vessel or on thesubmersible power head.

Our present invention is utilized by an operator at the drilling bargeobserving with television cameras 42, the position of the blowoutpreventer equipment relative to the production head 12. With theknowledge of the relative positions of the production head and theblowout prevention equipment the blowout prevention equipment and thelower end of the casing riser can be late-rally driven with the powerhead 16 by causing one or more of the motors 44 to drive the power headlaterally in the direction required to align the blowout preventionequipment onto the production head 12 as it is lowered thereto.

Although our present invention has been described with a certain degreeof particularity in order to set forth the best known mode of operation,it is to be understood that the scope of our invention is not to belimited to the details set forth but should be afforded the full breadthof the appended claims.

We claim:

1. A device for guiding well apparaus to a well located in a formationunderlying a body of water from a vessel positioned on the surface ofsaid body of water comprising:

a collar slidable along a portion of said well apparatus, means afiixedto said well apparatus near the lower end thereof for supporting saidcollar when said collar is in lowered position, controllable drivingmeans affixed to said collar and arranged to move the lower end of saidwell apparatus laterally into vertical alignment with said well, picturetransmission means attached to said collar for observing said well, andmeans for vertically moving said collar.

2. Apparatus for guiding blow-out prevention equipment lowered ontubular drilling apparatus onto a submarine well-head positioned at awell drilled into a formation underlying a body of water from a drillingbarge floating on said body of water, comprising in combination'l acollar slidable along a portion of said tubular apparatus, meansafi'lxed to said. tubular apparatus near the lower end thereof forsupporting said collar when said collar is in lowered position,controllable means connected to said collar for laterally driving thelower end of said tubular apparatus into vertical alignment with saidwell-head as said blow-out prevention equipment and tubular apparatusare lowered onto said well-head, picture transmission means attached tosaid collar for observing said well-head, and means for raising andlowering said collar between said supporting means and said barge.

References Cited by the Examiner UNITED STATES PATENTS 1,785,528 12/30ORourke 6169.1 2,060,670 11/36 Hartman 61-69 2,359,964 10/44 Barnett6169 2,433,971 1/48 Adams 6169 X 2,519,453 8/50 Goodman 61-69 2,923,5312/60 Bauer et al. '1757 2,981,073 4/61 Robinson 61-69 2,981,347 4/61Bauer et al -7 3,032,105 5/62 Reistle 175-7 X 3,050,140 8/62 Hayes 17573,099,316 7/63 Johnson 166-66.5 X

CHARLES E. OCONNELL, Primary Examiner.

1. A DEVICE FOR GUIDING WELL APPARATUS TO A WELL LOCATED IN A FORMATIONUNDERLYING A BODY OF WATER FROM A VESSEL POSITIONED ON THE SURFACE OFSAID BODY OF WATER COMPRISING: A COLLAR SLIDABLE ALONG A PORTION OF SAIDWELL APPARATUS, MEANS AFFIXED TO SAID WELL APPARATUS NEAR THE LOWER ENDTHEREOF FOR SUPPORTING SAID COLLAR WHEN SAID COLLAR IS IN LOWEREDPOSITION, CONTROLLABLE DRIVING MEANS AFFIXED TO SAID COLLAR AND ARRANGEDTO MOVE THE LOWER END OF SAID WELL APPARATUS LATERALLY INTO